Tuesday, June 23, 2009

I want the Expos back

Major League Baseball hated the Expos. Refer to the strike shortened season of 1994 in which the Expos were 74-40 when the season ended on August 12th. They were on pace to win over 200 games that year. (or just around 100, my math could be off). It was their best season since 1981 which "coincidentally" was shortened by a strike and they set up some kind of freaky split season schedule with dual playoffs and magic beansprouts or some other fantasy world stuff that meant the lowly Expos were again playing not to win the WS trophy but a "Thanks for playing in our fake season" participation ribbon of some sort. For the next 10 years the Expos constantly finished last in the NL North (The division Selig created for them). No one seemed to notice that half their games didn't count in the other NL division standings and that the other half were played against the Harlem Globetrotters. In 2004 Selig was forced to move the team to DC and weakly rename them The Nationals. This then coined the now popular term, "No matter how much you polish a turd, or where you move the Expos to, it's still a turd."

Since 04 the Nats have won about 37 games total, most of them against the Yankees last week. This year they had a guy hit in a bunch of games in a row, drafted some kid they're going to have to pay twice their payroll just to get his attention and now people are already talking about them drafting some 16 year old kid next year with the first pick when they inevitably finish last again. I hope everyone can control their excitement for the next 3 days because I am just beaming.